Sunday, October 12, 2008

Celery Apple Salad

It always perplexed me why carrots are sold in supermarkets with their bushy green leaves and all we get for celery are the stalks. Where are the leaves? I've never found anything decent to do with the carrot leaves, while the celery leaves are the best part of that plant! Fortunately, the celery we get in our farm-share and from the farmers' markets comes with leaves and I've been putting them to good use.

This is not the celery you are used to from the supermarket. You know, the boring spinster sister of the vegetable family that no one ever wants to show off in a dish. The locally grown celery we get this time of year has thin, bright green, and extremely crunchy stalks. They are a bit tough to eat raw when diced, but perfect when sliced paper thin. I slice the leaves as thinly as possible for use in salads and as a garnish on soups, fish, etc.

Here is a celery apple salad that is bright, cool, and crisp as a breezy fall day.

Apple Celery Salad

Serves 4

Note: if using supermarket celery, 1-2 stalks might be all you need to yield 1 cup of slices.

5-6 small celery stalks, sliced diagonally paper thin (about 1 cup sliced)
1 cup lightly packed celery leaves, cut into chiffonade (very thin strips)
1 apple, cut into julienne (I prefer to use Honeycrisp, but you can use any good eating apple that has a good balance between sweetness and acidity)
1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion
1 Tbsp whole grain Dijon mustard
2 tsp lime or lemon juice
1 Tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Toss all ingredients together, taste and correct seasoning. You might want to add more lime juice or salt. If the apples are too tart, a teaspoon of honey might be a good touch.

12 comments:

Suzanne said...

Those carrot tops are for serving to your bunnies! Mine depend on them.

Diary of Kay El said...

I love reading your blog! Wealth of info. esp. on fish. By the way,I think you meant celery "stalks" instead of "stocks". Cheers.

Helen said...

Diary of Kay El: thank you so much for catching my terrible misspelling of "stalk." I need a smarter spell checker :) Where is that artificial intelligence when you need it?

Suzanne: sounds like your bunny is eating well.

Sugarblush said...

yum...this looks so good and fresh. I am going to try this! thanks so much!

Joanna said...

Wow, I have all the ingredients for this on hand already (down to the farmers' market celery and the honeycrisp apple) - it must be fate! I figured there had to be something I could do with all those leaves, but I was low on ideas, so thanks for the timely post.

Anonymous said...

These look awesome.Getting hungry hungry hungry.Thx for posting this keep up the good work!!!

Laura Mcdowell

~M said...

Carrot tops can be sauteed with carrots or put in soups. I especially like them in beef broth and use them in my chicken stock (I put in a freezer bag in the freezer until I'm ready to make it).

Helen said...

Thanks ~M! I'll try them in a stock sometimes. I guess I tried using them raw in a salad and they were not very good.

ngọc trần said...

it is very good....

Lanny Day said...

Thanks for the great recipe. We tried it last night - delicious! And its good to see harvest recipes that are still green.

Loyd said...

OMG. So hungry now. Great recipe.

Pete said...

Wow, this reminds me of my mom's Waldorf salad. I make a similar pear-leek salad that's also nice:

http://nixonland.com/wordpress/?p=35